AL SUR DE LA FRONTERA Premieres at the Ford in October

 
AL SUR DE LA FRONTERA brings together an acclaimed and diverse group of Los Angeles musicians, performers, and artists for a singular night; blending music and performance to evoke the immigrant experience, celebrate communitas, and ritualistically invoke and explore border cultures.
 
Featuring the traditional music from the Sierra Zapoteca of Oaxaca with experimental arrangements, the Oaxacan LA-based Maqueos Music Oaxacan Brass Band, multidisciplinary artist Dorian Wood, indigenous trilingual Mixtec rapper Una Isu, Latina coloratura Soprano Maria Elena Altany, Chicano “futuristic laser gangster bass” electronic musician Baseck, multi-instrumentalist and conductor extraordinaire Yulissa Maqueos, and the Mexican extreme vocalist and interdisciplinary artist Carmina Escobar. 
 
Conceived by Mexico City-raised, Los Angeles-based Escobar, AL SUR DE LA FRONTERA is the result of her seven-year long collaborative relationship with maestro Estanislao Maqueos, founder of the first youth philharmonic band in the United States composed of first generation Oaxaqueños in America, called the Maqueos Music Academy. The Academy’s talented musicians, who comprise the Maqueos Music Oaxacan Brass Band, are the centerpiece of AL SUR DE LA FRONTERA. They embody the Academy’s mission to support music and to create a safe space for learning and preserving their culture through music.
 
Said Escobar, "AL SUR DE LA FRONTERA meets the immigrant struggle with beauty, to show how we are strong, powerful, and united in our differences."
 
AL SUR DE LA FRONTERA was created by co-Artistic Directors Escobar and artist Madeline Falcone for Boss Witch Productions, an artistic production company focused on the intersection of experimental sound art, ritual performance, video art, and transmedia collaboration. Founded and led by queer and trans artists, Boss Witch is headed by Falcone and Escobar, working to establish a sustainable and artist-driven infrastructure for the creation of experimental, site-specific work. Boss Witch seeks to reimagine our relationship to the world around us, creating immersive innovative exhibitions, performances, and sound art related to land, ritual, and the constant transformation of tradition.
 
Added Escobar, "My interest in combining traditional music with different music genres, artistic approaches, and different cultural backgrounds lies in the joyful experience of the unexpected, in the curiosity of what human communications can create when created in respectful loving interaction."
 
"AL SUR DE LA FRONTERA is symbolic of the immigrant experience. It gestures towards the memory of the place of origin by invoking the South and expresses the struggles of the northbound journey by naming the constructed and physical entity of “the border.” Taking strength from the pride of our place of origin not only roots us, but also gives us the power to create something new, to connect in wholeness to each other, to create communitas in love and respect,” said Escobar.